PREFACE
Professor Hoffmann translation
TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION.
In the volume published by Robert-Houdin under the title of Les Secrets de la Prestidigitation et de la Magie,[1] the author expressed his intention of issuing at an early date a sequel to that work. Death unhappily prevented his carrying his design into execution; but he left behind him materials sufficient, if not, as he had wished, for an exhaustive treatise on the art of conjuring, at least for the compilation of a new work of a highly interesting character.
It is this posthumous work which is now offered to the public. Not only is it both instructive and amusing, as revealing the curious secrets of the professional wizard, but, further, with the aid of the diagrams with which the text is illustrated, it will enable the hitherto uninitiated to repeat on their own account those experiments which Robert-Houdin modestly describes as “tricks,” but which are in reality marvellous applications of mechanical and physical science, worthy in many instances of the genius of a Vaucanson.